As discussed in Chapter 4, sensitive financial and commercial information relating to PPPs such as cost structures, profit margins and intellectual property tend to be protected by 'commercial in confidence' arrangements. This often leads to criticism by public and academic commentators (see Barrett 2003: p.38; Davidson 2007; and Yuan et al 2009 as examples). However, with the New Schools Privately Financed Project (as with other PPPs), there are exemptions to these restrictions, as specified under contractual arrangements. They include disclosures required by law, disclosures by the Department's Project Director (or statutory authority depending on the nature of the agreement) to State government departments and their agencies and / or disclosures to prospective shareholders or other investors (New South Wales Department of Education and Training 2003: p.25). These types of disclosures, to an extent, may mitigate the impact of reputation damage to the government through the release of this information, thus leading to greater transparency in deals that have been struck between public and private partners.